Google is fighting the defamation battle Meta caved on

Google filed a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by anti-corporate diversity activist Robby Starbuck, who claimed Google’s AI falsely associated him with sexual assault allegations and a white nationalist.

Starbuck is seeking $15 million in damages from Google. But the company says in its filing that his claims simply represent his “misuse of developer tools to induce hallucinations.” Starbuck doesn’t identify what prompts he used to generate the outputs at issue, according to Google, or any actual person who was misled by the alleged claims. Starbuck did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google, of course, could eventually choose a similar route to Meta to resolve the claims. But at least for now, it’s choosing to fight them in court.